


Why the heck are there so many different kinds of milk?

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Adorable!Steve, Also I suck at tags, Arguing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drunk!Tony, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, and am worse at summaries, because it's Steve and Tony, caring!tony, so that kind of goes without saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve may or may not enjoy soymilk, but he <em>does</em> know how to work a toaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is my first (or at least it started that way) Stony fic, and I have seen all the recent films and read a small number of comics. I don't normally write things this long or this gen, so I'm sorry if the pacing is weird or anything....
> 
> unbeta'd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apparently I should warn you: this first chapter is LITERALLY a retelling of approximately the second half of the 2012 Avengers movie, from Steve's point of view. If you don't want to read that, you should be fine skipping this chapter and reading the subsequent one(s), with the understanding that they start right after that movie ends. I might make some vague reference to something Steve thought during the movie, but I think you're all clever enough to figure that out ;)

Steve was walking by Dr. Banner’s lab when he heard the doctor saying, “Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke…Harlem.”

Steve paused, intrigued, and glanced through the window to see Stark and Banner looking over Loki’s spear.

“Well, I promise a stress-free environment—no tension, no surprises—” Stark jabbed Dr. Banner with some kind of electrified screwdriver.

“Ow!” Banner exclaimed. 

Steve was entering the room before he gave it a second thought. “Hey!”

“Nothing?” Stark asked Banner.

Steve was still in panic mode, although the doctor looked perfectly calm. “Are you nuts?” He shouted.

“Jury’s out.” Stark spared him half a glance before returning his attention to the other scientist. “You really have got a lid on it, haven’t you? What’s your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?”

He couldn’t believe the lack of care this guy was exuding! Did Stark not realize the delicacy of Dr. Banner’s condition? “Is everything a joke to you?”

Stark finally turned to look at him, pointing with the—whatever that stick was. “Funny things are.”

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny,” Steve insisted. “No offense, Doc,” he appended.

“No, it’s all right,” Banner assured him calmly, which in turn helped slow Steve’s panic. “I wouldn’t have come aboard if I couldn’t handle pointy things.”

Stark was moving again, walking around the table and gesturing. “You’re tiptoeing, Big Man! You need to strut.”

“And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark.” Steve reprimanded.

“Do you think I’m not?” Stark stepped over to another table and picked up a bag of dried blueberries. “Why did Fury call us in, why now, why not before? What isn’t he telling us? I can’t do the equation unless I have all the variables.”

“You think Fury’s hiding something?”

“He’s a spy. Captain, he’s _the_ spy. His secrets have secrets.” He popped some berries into his mouth. “It’s bugging him, too, isn’t it?” He gestured to Dr. Banner.

“Uhh,” Banner began cautiously. “I just want to finish my work here, and…”

“Doctor?” If there was a conspiracy, Steve wanted to know about it.

Banner paused and looked down, taking off his glasses. “‘A warm light for all mankind’, Loki’s jab at Fury about the cube—”

“I heard it.”

“Well, I think that was meant for you.” He gestured to Stark, who offered him a berry, looking purposefully away from Steve. “Even if Barton didn’t tell Loki about the Tower, it was still all over the news.”

“The Stark tower? That big, ugly—” Stark shot him a look, but he continued regardless. “—building in New York?”

“It’s powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?”

Stark nodded. “It’s just the prototype.” He turned to Steve again. “I’m kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That’s what he’s getting at.”

“So,” Banner continued, “why didn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?”

“I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secure files.” Stark pulled a device out of his pocket and looked at it, walking around the table to stand next to Steve.

“I’m sorry, did you say—”

Stark cut him off. “Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours I’ll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has tried to hide.” He tucked the device back in his pocket, raising his eyebrows slightly at Steve. “Blueberry?” He asked, holding out the packet.

Steve didn’t even glance at it. “Yet you’re confused as to why they didn’t want you around.”

“An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome.”

“I think Loki’s trying to wind us up.” Could these geniuses not see that? “This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed. We have orders,” he continued with a pointed look at both men. “We should follow them.”

“Following’s not really my style.” Stark popped another handful of blueberries into his mouth.

Steve sighed, frustrated. “And you’re all about ‘style’, aren’t you?”

Stark raised his eyebrows. “Of the people in this room, which one is a) wearing a spangly outfit, and b) not of use?”

“Steve,” Dr Banner put in, “tell me none of this smells a little funky to you.”

Steve looked between them and let out a breath. “Just find the cube.”

He stalked out of the room, unwilling to admit in front of Stark that he agreed with their assessment. The moment he was alone in the corridor, however, he knew something needed to be done. There was no reason whatsoever for a military intelligence organization to be in the energy business, as Banner had said. And as aggravating as the guy was, Steve had to admit that Stark was a genius. He had some good ideas, certainly. He was just _so annoying_! No one had ever made Steve so darned _angry_ without even trying. It made him want to wipe that smug little smirk off the bastard’s face once and for all, show him all the weakness and vulnerability he tried to hide with that suit. There were some things money and good looks couldn’t smooth over.

He walked down the corridor to the classified storage rooms, knowing that if there was any dirty laundry S.H.I.E.L.D. was hiding on this…ship, it would be there. Breaking in wasn’t terribly difficult—the serum had assured that—and he moved around the room, looking for anything that seemed out of place. In the back were crates of hydra-like weapons. So, “clean energy” was making deadly weapons? He found himself getting even angrier than he’d been already. He would have thought, in the seventy years he’d spent on ice, that people would have learned better than to build weapons that powerful, that society would have matured past the point of one-upping each other’s guns. He grabbed one of the weapons and headed back to Banner’s lab.

Director Fury was already there when he entered the room, arguing with Stark and Dr. Banner.

“Yeah, then you get your cube back, no muss, no fuss”—the screen in front of Stark bleeped—“What is phase 2?”

Steve slammed the gun down on a table, attracting all of their attention. “Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry,” he said to Stark, not sorry at all, “computer was moving a little slow for me.”

Fury immediately attempted to deny. “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we’re making…”

Stark cut him off. “I’m sorry, Nick. What were you lying?” He turned the screen around to show diagrams of weapons like the ones Steve had found.

“I was wrong, Director,” Steve said. “The world hasn’t changed a bit.” 

Thor and Miss Romanoff came into the room just then. “Did you know about this?” Banner asked them.

“You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” Miss Romanoff asked him calmly.

Banner chuckled humorlessly. “I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed.”

“Loki is manipulating you.”

“And you’ve been doing what, exactly?”

“You didn’t come here ‘cause I bat my eyelashes at you—”

“Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.” He pointed at the screen.

Fury paused for a second before pointing at Thor. “Because of him.”

Thor looked surprised. “Me?”

“Last year, earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly— hilariously—outgunned.”

“My people want nothing but peace with your planet!”

Fury whirled on him. “But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And you’re not the only threat. The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched, that can’t be controlled.”

“Like you controlled the cube?” Steve asked indignantly.

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies,” Thor insisted, finally getting angry. “It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war.”

“A higher form?” Steve asked, incredulous.

“You forced our hand. We had to come up with something—”

“A nuclear deterrent,” Stark interrupted. “‘Cause that always calms everything right down.”

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?” Fury demanded.

“I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep—”

“Wait, wait! How is this now about me?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve sneered, “isn’t everything?”

“I thought humans were more evolved than this,” Thor said self-righteously.

“ _Excuse_ me,” Fury shouted, “do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?”

“You understand this is a team, right? Does that need to bother you so much?” Steve said to Stark at the same time as Thor said, “You treat your champions with such mistrust!”

“You’re not my champions!” Fury shouted.

“Are you boys really that naïve?” Miss Romanoff said loudly enough to get everyone’s attention. “S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats.”

“Captain America is on threat watch?” Dr. Banner was incredulous.

“We all are!” Miss Romanoff was certain. 

“He’s not your concern, Doctor.” Fury said dismissively, and then Steve stopped paying attention to their conversation because Stark was talking to him again.

“Wait, you’re on that list?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “Are you above or below angry bees?”

“Stark, so help me God, you make one more wisecrack…” Why did this man know how to push his buttons so perfectly?

“Threat! Verbal Threat! I feel threatened!”

“Show some respect!”

“Respect what?” 

Steve wished he weren’t so much stronger than Stark so he could punch him. This conversation was going nowhere fast, and there was nothing he could do about it. In some back corner of his mind, he remembered that Dr. Banner was in the room, so they should probably be being careful, but, urgh!

“You speak of control,” Thor was saying, “But you court chaos!”

“That’s his M. O., isn’t it?” Banner cut in. “I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, we’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re a time bomb.”

“You,” Fury urged, stepping closer to the doctor, “need to step away.”

“Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” Stark asked cavalierly, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve swatted it away. “You know damn well why, back off!”

“Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.”

It was too much. Steve started circling him and his voice lowered. “Yeah, big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” Stark shrugged.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you.” What was really bothering him was the way Stark didn’t even seem _bothered_ , and yet he was making Steve’s blood boil like it hadn’t since before the ice. “I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire.”

“Always a way out. You know you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

“A hero? Like you?” And there it was, a little bit of steel in Stark’s tone. “You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

“Put on the suit,” Steve said, because he wouldn’t hit someone so comparatively defenseless, no matter how badly they’d pissed him off, “let’s go a few rounds.”

Thor laughed. “You people are so petty any tiny.”

“Yeah, this is a team,” Dr. Banner said sarcastically.

“Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his—”

“Where? You rented my room!”

“The cell was just in case—”

“Just in case you needed to kill me, but you can’t. I know, I tried.” The doctor paused, looking around when he realized everyone was listening to him. “I got low. I didn’t see an end. So, I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show, and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?” As he spoke, he reached back and picked up Loki’s spear from behind him.

Fury put a hand on his gun, and the tension in the room was palpable—and not just between Steve and Stark anymore.

“Dr. Banner,” Steve cajoled, “put down the scepter.”

For a moment Dr. Banner looked at the scepter as though he didn’t know how it had gotten into his hand, and then the computer beeped loudly.

“Got it,” said Stark.

“Sorry, kids,” Dr. Banner said, crossing the lab. “You don’t get to see my party trick after all.”

“You located the Tesseract?” Thor asked.

“I could get there fastest!” And why did Stark have this need to be the best at everything?

“The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it.”

Stark ignored him and started to leave.

“You’re not going alone,” Steve told him, putting a cautionary hand on his arm.

“You’re gonna stop me?” Stark swatted the hand off as though it had burned him.

“Put on the suit, let’s find out.” Oh, it would be good to punch him.

“I’m not afraid to hit an old man.” He stepped closer to Steve.

“Put on the suit,” Steve growled.

“Oh my god…” Banner said, just as an explosion tore through the lab.

“Put on the suit!” Steve repeated, although with more fear than anger now.

“Yeah.” Stark agreed, getting up from where the explosion had knocked him to the ground. He stumbled into the door frame, and Steve pulled him upright, adrenaline coursing through his veins as they ran down the hallway, looking for the source of the explosion.

“I’m on it,” Stark said in response to something over his earpiece, before turning to Steve. “Engine three. I’ll meet you there.”

Steve ran toward the engine, not knowing for sure how he could help, but following orders was safe, right? He wasn’t sure why he was following orders from Stark, of all people, but they were the orders he had. He burst through a door to find himself at the edge of a huge, flaming hole in the ship. “Stark!” he called, “Stark, I’m here!”

“Good,” Stark replied, flying in. “Let’s see what we got.” He flew over to some of the connections for the engine, and then muttered something about superconducting cooling systems. He jammed something back into place, and then turned to Steve. “I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position.”

Steve nodded like he knew what that meant. He got “engine control panel”, at least. He swung across the gap, jumping over some debris, and pulled open the panel. It was a mess of multicolored wires, lights, and other computer-y bits Steve had no name for.

“What’s it look like in there?” Stark asked over the comm.

“It seems to run on some form of electricity.”

“Well,” Stark said, sounding surprisingly non-judgmental, “you’re not wrong.”

Steve huffed a laugh. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

Stark gave a small sigh and described what “overload position” was supposed to look like.

None of them looked that way—in fact, all the little red things looked the same. “Okay, the relays are intact! What’s our next move?”

“Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won’t re-engage without a jump. I’m gonna have to get in there and push.” There was a hint of resignation in his tone.

“Well, if that thing gets up to speed, you’ll get shredded!” For some reason this distressed Steve more than he thought it would. He told himself it was because there had to be a way of doing this that didn’t involve losing anyone, not because of Stark specifically.

“That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage maglev, and that could—”

“Speak English!” Steve shouted. Stator control unit? Maglev?

There was a brief pause. “You see that red lever?”

Steve looked, and there was a red lever there.

“It’ll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word.”

Steve jumped over to where the lever was, and stood by it, hoping everything else was going okay. He turned around, glancing toward the inside of the ship, and realized there were people there, coming out onto the blasted platform edge. One of them threw a grenade toward the engine, and Steve leapt into action, catching it in the air. Hopefully Tony—um, Stark—could hang on a minute while he dealt with these interlopers. He kick-punched one guy to the ground, and threw another off the edge of the platform. A third pulled out a machine gun and started firing—he threw the grenade at them and hopped back up a level, grabbing the fallen man’s weapon as he went. The hostile was trying to use the walls for cover—Steve backed up a bit, trying to get the right angle and forgetting that the platform he was on was structurally unsound. As he ducked to avoid enemy fire, his feet slid on a piece of debris and he was falling. A moment of blind panic, and then he’d caught hold of a loose cable. Thank Heaven it held, although with the wind off the ship he wasn’t sure how long that would last. _Hang on, Tony,_ he thought. _I’m coming._

“Cap, hit the lever!” Stark called before Steve was even half-way up the cable. Damn.

“I need a minute, here!”

“Lever! Now!”

Oh, geez, Tony was going to get shredded by a giant rotor all because he couldn’t climb a darned rope. He was Captain America! He should be able to climb a piece of cable. Steve threw himself into the climb with redoubled effort. Shots rang out as he reached the top. Oh, right, gunfight. Lever. 

He crawled to the lever as he heard Tony shouting for help, praying that it would be soon enough. Ten seconds later, Tony came flying out of the engine, barreling straight into Steve’s gunman before collapsing on the deck. Steve slumped against the wall, relieved beyond words. Okay. They were okay. And then, suddenly, over the com, Fury’s voice, “Coulson is down,” and the world seemed to stop in that moment. Steve froze where he was. Coulson. Such a friendly fellow, and _oh, mercy, I never did sign his trading cards for him_ …. Steve looked down at Stark, who was also standing motionless, helmet off, staring into the distance like someone had pulled the rug out from beneath him. Coulson. Damn.

After a minute they went back into the ship—if there was one thing Steve had learned during the War it was that the world didn’t stop turning just because someone died. Stark—no, Tony, now, really—went to go change out of the suit, and Steve took off his stars and stripes. No need to keep looking so “spangly” at the moment, after all. They met back on the bridge, with a defeated-sounding Director Fury.

“These were in Phil Coulson’s jacket,” he said, holding out a stack of blood-stained cards. “Guess he never did get you to sign them.” Fury flung the cards at Steve, who was confronted with a dozen bloody pictures of himself. Guilt rose in his chest like bile as he picked one up. “We’re dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming.” The director sighed, walking around the table as Steve put down the card. “Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though, because I was playing something even riskier.” He sighed again. “There was an idea—Stark knows this—called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes.” 

Tony stood up abruptly and walked out of the room. Steve hoped it wasn’t because of what he’d said earlier, about Tony not being a hero. He wasn’t sure how true he thought that was, anymore. That conversation felt like years ago, not hours.

“Well,” Fury said, looking after him, “it’s an old-fashioned notion.”

Steve found Tony in the room where Banner’s cage had been, where Coulson had died. He was looking pensively into the well where the cage had been. Steve leaned against a rail, unsure if the other man even realized he was there. 

“Was he married?” he asked after a beat.

“No,” Tony said without startling. “There was a cellist, I think.”

“I’m sorry. He seemed like a good man.” 

Tony snorted, finally looking up. “He was an idiot.”

“Why?” And here Stark went, winding him up again. “For believing?”

“For taking on Loki alone.” Tony paced back along the platform, hands mobile as usual.

“He was doing his job.”

Tony scoffed. “He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have…” He shook his head.

“Sometimes there isn’t a way out, Tony.” Steve stepped closer to him.

“Right, I’ve heard that before.” Tony passed him, looking like he was about to leave.

Steve followed. “Is this the first time you lost a soldier?”

That stopped Tony in his tracks, and brought more fire to his tone than Steve had yet heard. “We are _not_ soldiers.” He stopped, seeming to realize what he was saying and who he was saying it to. “I’m not marching to Fury’s fife.”

Steve shook his head slightly. “Neither am I. He’s got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now we gotta put that behind us and get this done. Now, Loki needs a power source. If we can put together a list—”

“He made it personal,” Tony interrupted, looking at the bloodstain on the wall.

“That’s not the point,” Steve said patiently. This guy had the attention span of a monkey.

“That _is_ the point. That’s Loki’s point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?”

“To tear us apart.”

“Yeah,”—Tony was clearly going somewhere with this, excitement at discovery all over his face—“divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? _That’s_ what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience.” Tony shook his finger, pacing back past Steve.

“Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart.”

“Yeah, that was just previews. This is—this is opening night. And, and, and, Loki, he’s a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the sky with his name plastered—” Tony paused, looking down to meet Steve’s gaze, and Steve knew immediately what he was thinking. The Stark tower, of course—speaking of full-tilt divas… “Son of a bitch.”

They ran out of the room, Tony to see what he could do about his suit, Steve to go collect Miss Romanoff. They arranged to meet at the Stark tower ASAP.

When he asked after her, he found out she was in the infirmary, although she wasn’t hurt.

He put on the rest of his suit as he walked. They didn’t exactly have time to spare. “Time to go,” he said as he opened the door to the room she was in.

“Go where?” she asked, not looking at all phased.

“I’ll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?”

“I can,” a man said, coming out of the bathroom. 

Steve was pretty sure he was the “Barton” that had been declared compromised earlier. He looked at Miss Romanoff in question. She nodded. “You got a suit?”

“Yeah.”

“Then suit up.”

He left them to get ready, heading to the flight deck to wait for them. He considered going to check on Tony, but didn’t think it would help to distract him from his work—he needed his suit in working order for this to work. The agents were quick to meet him—he supposed S.H.I.E.L.D. was a good place to learn efficiency—and they marched onto the flight deck. There was a boy on the jet they were taking who made some vague protest, but for some reason it didn’t take much to get him to back down. 

The flight to New York took very little time, really, although by the time they got there the portal was already open and Tony was already fighting off a swarm of aliens on things that looked like flying motorcycles.

“What, did you guys stop for drive-thru?” He heard Tony asking over the com. “Swing up Park, I’m gonna lay ‘em out for you.”

It was hard to tell from the back, but it sounded like they did as he said, and then made some attempt to engage what was probably Loki, given that almost immediately afterwards they were falling from the sky with an engine on fire. Steve did his best to hold on as Barton slammed them into concrete.

“We’ve got to get back up there!” He shouted as they emerged from the plane, running towards the commotion. Suddenly there was a loud noise from the portal, and what looked like a flying skeletal whale came through, releasing dozens more Chitauri on the city from its flanks. “Stark, you seeing this?” he called, somewhat awed.

“Seeing,” Tony agreed. “Still working on believing. “Where’s Banner? Has he shown up yet?”

“Banner?” How was Tony expecting Banner to get there?

“Just keep me posted,” w as the cryptic reply.

The three of them on the ground threw themselves into the fight as best as they could, using shield, arrows, and guns to knock the aliens from their mounts.

“We’ve got civilians trapped up here,” Hawkeye said, gesturing as they hid behind a makeshift barricade of overturned taxis.

Steve turned and saw something that made his blood boil. “Loki,” he growled. The “god” was swooping around burning up civilians like he was having a barbeque. “They’re fish in a barrel down there.” He was torn between going to rescue them and staying to fight with his comrades in arms.

Agent Romanoff seemed to sense his dilemma. “We got this. It’s good. Go.”

“Do you think you can hold them off?” He called to Barton.

“Captain,” the archer affirmed, fiddling with his . “It would be my genuine pleasure.” He whipped out an arrow took out a whole set of the creatures.

Steve didn’t wait to be told twice. He ran towards the screaming innocents, leaping out to the roof of a bus and down to the ground as explosions went off all around. There was something that resembled a police barricade, and he went straight to the officer who looked to be in charge. “You need men in these buildings. There are people inside and they’re going to be running right into the line of fire. You take them to the basements or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th.”

The cop looked at him like he was crazy. “Why the hell should I take orders from you?”

Just then, a pair of Chitauri sprung up beside him and Steve attacked without thought, incapacitating both of them in seconds. The police chief was already gone, giving orders to his forces. Steve smiled to himself for an instant. Sometimes it helped to be a Super Soldier. He hurried back to Barton and Miss Romanoff, arriving just before Thor landed, blasting lightning.

“What’s the story upstairs?” He asked the Asgardian.

“The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable.”

“Thor’s right, we gotta deal with these guys,” Tony added over the com.

“How do we do this?” Black Widow asked.

“As a team,” Steve declared.

Thor immediately attempted to correct him. “I have unfinished business with Loki.”

“Yeah?” Hawkeye said. “Well, get in line.”

“Save it,” Steve cut him off, having used all his patience for bickering up way earlier. “Loki’s going to keep this fight focused on us, and that’s what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He’s going to need us to—” He cut off at the sound of a motorcycle approaching, surprised to see Dr. Banner astride it. They all walked over to greet him.

“So,” the Doctor said. “This all seems horrible.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Miss Romanoff said, giving him a pointed look.

Banner looked contrite. “Sorry.”

“No, we could use a little worse.”

“Stark, we got him,” Steve said.

“Banner?”

Steve nodded, even though he knew the other man couldn’t see him. “Just like you said.”

“Then tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.” He flew around the corner, followed by the whale-thing.

“I—I don’t see how that’s a party,” Agent Romanoff said with trepidation.

Dr. Banner started walking towards the thing.

“Doctor Banner!” Steve shouted, before remembering who he was talking to and correcting. “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

“That’s my secret, Captain,” Banner said, not pausing. “I’m always angry.” He shifted, slamming his fist into the snout of the beast, and Iron Man shot a missile into the exposed flesh. The beast was dead, and they were all assembled.

“…guys!” Black Widow said, looking at the portal. There were at least two more of the whale things on their way.

“Call it, Captain,” Tony said, and Steve felt a tiny thrill at being given that authority, but there was no time to analyze it.

“All right, listen up,” Steve said in his most authoritative voice. “Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof.” He pointed. “Eyes on everything, call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash.”

“Can you give me a lift?” Barton asked the Iron Man.

“Right. Better clench up, Legolas.” He grabbed the shorter man and flew him up to the nearby roof.

“Thor,” Steve continued, “you got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow ‘em down. You got the lightning. Light the bastards up.” Thor flew off using Mjolnir, and Steve turned to Black Widow. “You and me, we stay here on the ground. We keep the fighting here. And Hulk”— the beast turned to look at him—“smash!”

Hulk grinned, leaping onto the nearest building and tearing Chitauri from its walls. Steve watched him long enough to make sure he was being successful (noting that Thor seemed to have used the Empire State building as a giant lightning rod), before his battle instincts swept him away. 

Black Widow took out a hostile, and then turned on Steve with its spear before recognition swept across her features. She sighed, looking suddenly exhausted, with blood running down her forehead. “Captain, none of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don’t close that portal.”

Steve stopped, looking up at the portal himself. “Our biggest guns couldn’t touch it.”

“Well,” she said hopefully, “maybe it’s not about guns.”

He glanced at her, and saw the speculative glint in her eye. The spy in her wouldn’t be satisfied unless she tried herself, he knew. And she was right—there were too many of these guys as it was, and they didn’t show any sign of slowing. “If you want to get up there, you’re going to need a ride.”

She looked up at the alien cruisers. “I got a ride.” She started walking away from him, “I could use a boost, though.”

He held his shield in front of him so she could spring off it. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah,” she said lightly, although her breathlessness gave her away. “It’s gonna be fun.” She ran forward, jumping off a car and onto his shield. He bounced her up into the air, and she caught onto and enemy cruiser. He watched her for a second—she still hadn’t managed to pull herself up onto the platform, and there were two Chitauri on the thing already, and, well, it went against his inner sensibilities to let a dame go off and do something like that (although he was starting to realize that no one _let_ Natasha Romanoff do anything), but then he was getting shot at all over again, and he returned his focus to the immediate presence of hordes of hostile aliens.

Tony appeared for an instant, bouncing one of his lasers off Steve’s shield, and then he was flying off again. Steve thought he must have gotten some kind of dust in his lungs, because all of a sudden it seemed harder to breathe. There was no time for analysis, though—the Chitauri were still coming.

“Captain, the bank on 42nd past Madison,” he heard Hawkeye saying over the com. “They cornered a lot of civilians in there.”

“I’m on it,” he said. He was surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded (definitely breathed in some brick dust). He got to the bank as quickly as he could, jumping in through a second story window just as one of the hostiles activated some kind of device (for one wild second, he though it looked a bit like one of these new-fangled cell phone things people had nowadays, but then he realized the way it was beeping said “bomb”, no matter when you heard it). He dodged some shots and kicked at an overturned desk, propelling it into several of the hostiles, then went hand-to-hand with those remaining. As he flung one over the banister, he noticed the all full of frightened civilians. 

“Everyone! Clear out!” He shouted at them as a Chitauri grabbed him from behind. He fought it off, managing to flip the creature into the path of an oncoming burst from its comrade’s weapon. The other Chitauri was standing right beside the bomb—it noticed this at the same moment he did. The thing bent over and scooped up the now rapidly beeping device, and flung it at Steve, who leaped back and out the window, putting his shield between himself and the blast. 

Most of the force still hit him, though, and he was thrown back through the window an onto an abandoned vehicle. Even with the serum, that much force was painful, and, as he looked around him at all the chaos of the battle, he could see no hope. They were going to lose, unless something changed. Illogically, he found himself thinking of Tony, wondering how he was faring. The thought that the other man might not survive the battle made his heart clench painfully. He hoped Tony knew he didn’t hate him—if they both died today, he hoped Tony knew that Steve had learned there was more to him than his arrogance.

Eventually he realized Thor was fighting beside him—he wonder how long he’d been gone in that daze. And, of course, the instant he started actually thinking about his actions, he faltered just slightly, and took a shot right to the gut. He fell to the ground with a huff of pain, grateful that someone had his back for the moment. He struggled to his knees, to see the Asgardian proffering a hand. He accepted the help up with a grunt.

“Are you ready for another bout?” Thor asked.

“What, you getting sleepy?” he joked, although his abdomen was still paining him.

Thor just reached for Mjolnir.

“I can close it!” That was Black Window’s voice on the com. “Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down!”

“Do it!” Steve shouted.

“No, wait!” That was Tony, and abruptly Steve was having trouble breathing again.

“Stark, these things are still coming!” He shouted, letting the Captain in him take over.

“I got a nuke coming in, it’s gonna blow in less than a minute.” Tony said calmly.

Steve felt his insides go cold. A nuke?

“And I know just where to put it,” Tony said.

It wasn’t terribly difficult to figure out the other man’s plan. “Stark,” Steve said sternly, “you know that’s a one-way trip.”

Tony didn’t deign to respond, and Steve really couldn’t breathe now. So much for “never the guy to make the sacrifice play”, here Tony was doing the most recklessly sacrificial thing he could think of.

He looked up, and there was Iron Man, holding on to a missile, flying straight up into the portal. As he crossed through, Steve couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. The city was saved, but there was no way Tony was making it back through that portal—they had to close it, or the blast would come through anyway, as well as however many Chitauri felt like it. There was a muffled explosion and a brilliant flash of light from within the portal, and then all the Chitauri beasts collapsed as though someone had pulled their plug. He stared up at the portal for another few seconds, praying, and then whispered, “Close it.”

The portal started collapsing in on itself, and Steve had to look down. Tony was gone. But then he heard Thor suck in a surprised breath, and there, falling down from the portal, was Tony. “Son of a gun,” he breathed, allowing a grin to break out across his face.

The grin quickly morphed into a look of concern, however—Tony was falling much too fast, and—

“He’s not slowing down,” Thor declared, swinging his hammer as though about to jump into the sky to catch him. Steve really wished he could fly, in that instant.

Suddenly the Hulk was flying through the air, catching Tony and sliding to the ground with the limp body in his arms. The beast set him down as gently as Steve had ever seen the Hulk do anything, and he and Thor ran over to see what was wrong.

“Is he breathing?” Steve asked as Thor flipped him over, ripping off his facemask.

He couldn’t hear anything as he leaned over the other man’s prone form, and the circle of light produced by Tony’s arc reactor was noticeably missing. He couldn’t bring himself to believe it—after all this, after they’d won, after Tony had even managed to get back through the portal, he was still going to die? Steve sat back, feeling tears prick at his eyes.

Suddenly the Hulk roared (probably his equivalent of mourning) and Tony gasped, the light coming back on. The Hulk roared again, this time obviously in triumph.

“What the hell?” Tony asked in a panic, eyes darting to meet Steve’s. “What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me.”

Steve felt like grinning, but he was exhausted both physically and emotionally. He took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself. “We won,” he finally declared.

Tony let out a sigh of relief and shut his eyes. “All right, yay!” he said, with a halfhearted arm motion. His voice was still breathless. “Hurray, good job, guys.” He tried to sit up, but couldn’t—the strain leaked into his voice. “Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma?” Steve couldn’t help but grin, now—yes, Tony was definitely back, attention problems and all. “There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.”

“We’re not finished yet,” Thor pronounced.

Steve turned to look at him in disbelief. Oh. Right. Loki.

Tony turned to him with pleading eyes. “And then shawarma after?”

Steve held out a hand and pulled Tony to his feet, letting the shorter man lean on him a little as they made their way over to his damaged tower. 

“Oh, come on, guys! How hard would it have been to leave the letters intact? I mean, I get it, battle, but seriously?”

Steve huffed a bit of a laugh, but Thor just looked pensive. “It now has only the letter ‘A’. Are we not called the Avengers?”

“Say, that’s right, Tony! Maybe you should call it the Avengers Tower.”

Tony shot him a glare. “Well, maybe I will.”

Steve just raised his eyebrows at him.

By the time they’d reached the base of the tower, Barton had joined them. The four who were reasonably sized took the elevator (mercifully undamaged) up to the penthouse, and the Hulk climbed up to meet them. 

Agent Romanoff was waiting at the top. “Loki’s just through here. He’s not in great shape.” She smiled at the Hulk, who roared in greeting.

Loki was on the floor, looking much the worse for wear. As they gathered around him, he stirred and tried to get up, crawling into a sitting position and turning around to find Barton’s arrow in his face. “If it’s all the same to you,” he said, panting, “I’ll have that drink now.”

After they’d bound and gagged Loki, and Dr. Banner had shrunk back down to size, Tony really did insist they go out for shawarma. The six of them crowded around a too-small table in a tiny restaurant that hadn’t fully managed to escape the attack. The shopkeepers were willing enough to feed them, though, especially after Tony handed them a wad of bills. They were all injured, and everyone but Tony wasn’t exactly wearing the sort of thing they normally wore on an evening out (Dr. Banner had borrowed something from Tony’s closet). Steve was exhausted (even with the serum, he did eventually run out of steam), and shawarma was some kind of strange foreign meat and bread thing he wasn’t sure he liked, but he was still actually somewhat grateful to not have to deal with everything for the moment.

Afterwards, they brought Loki back to S.H.I.E.L.D., where Fury met them gratefully.

“Loki will return to Asgard to face retribution for his misdeeds,” Thor proclaimed as soon as Fury stopped talking. “He must learn to understand what he has done.”

“And the Tesseract?” Fury asked.

“Should not have been in the hands of humans in the first place. I shall need it to return to my people.”

Fury nodded, seeming less surprised than Steve had expected. “Very well. I’ll have Selvig meet you with it tomorrow, at Central Park.” He sighed. “You did good today.”

They took it as a dismissal—all of them were ready to rest, or at least change. Steve hovered near Tony as they left the room, noticing that the shorter man was still a little unsteady on his feet. “Tony,” Steve said as they walked, “are you okay?”

“What? I’m fine. You know, just your standard, everyday, almost getting killed by a massive horde of aliens let by a crazy demigod, fall from the sky after redirecting a nuke, kind of day.”

Steve chuckled breathlessly. “You could have died today. You weren’t breathing, and your arc reactor wasn’t lit. We thought you were—”

“See, the important word in that sentence was ‘could’. I _could_ have, but I didn’t, so, don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Cap. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, I guess.” They’d reached the edge of the building, where they were parting ways. “Take care of yourself, Tony. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

They all met back in central park. Drs. Banner and Selvig transferred the cube into some kind of strange Asgardian cylinder, which Thor took (clapping Selvig on the back as he did so—that’s right, they were friends…). He handed the other end to Loki, who was bound and muzzled, then looked around at all of them before twisting his end of the cylinder and transporting away. And then, just like that, it was over. Barton and Miss Romanoff were heading off together, Dr. Banner was staying with Tony, and he was going back to his lonely apartment to brood. Steve was pretty sure he’d never been so sad to have been so successful.

He walked over to Tony and shook his hand, resting his other hand on his arm (it wasn’t a hug, it would be inappropriate to hug, right?). “I’ll see you around, won’t I?”

Tony smiled. “You can bet on it. You’ll have to come by the tower once I’ve got it fixed up—I can show you what a big ugly building it isn’t.”

Steve grinned. “I’d like that.”

“Have you got a cell phone? Or are those too ‘modern’ for Mr. Forties?”

Steve actually let out a little bit of a laugh. “I do, actually. Fury made me get one, so he could get ahold of me.”

“Good.” Tony grinned. “I’ll call and set up a play date.”

Banner came over then, and they got into Tony’s too-fancy car. They drove off, leaving Steve staring after them for a minute before he got on his motorcycle and drove off home himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say that I love Pepper.

It was a week before he next saw Tony, and if it had been anyone else, he would have assumed it was a chance meeting, but given, well, _Tony Stark_ , he figured the man had probably just tracked him to the grocery store (because the idea of Tony Stark doing his own grocery shopping was laughable, and because there were probably a dozen Whole Foods between this one and the Stark tower). Anyway, Steve was buying groceries (he liked Whole Foods because most of the things they sold there had names even he could recognize), and when he looked up from the milk (why were there so many different kinds? How was he supposed to know if he wanted 1%, 2%, whole, almond, soy, organic…? He was avoiding the “skim”—it looked vaguely blue), there was Tony, standing behind him and smirking. He looked surprisingly normal, t-shirt and cargo pants. Steve would never have guessed he was a billionaire.

“Tony?” he said incredulously after a second. “I mean, what are you doing here, Stark?” He tried to make the question sound as accusatory as possible.

Tony snorted, strutting up to him and pulling the milk out of his hands. “Soy milk, Rogers? I’d’ve figured you for more of a whole milk sort of fellow.”

Steve blushed. “I, uh, I don’t know, I’ve been trying a different kind every week. How am I supposed to choose if I don’t try them?”

Tony rolled his eyes and put the milk in the cart. “Most people just drink what they’ve always had, which, in your case, Man-out-of-time, would probably be whole. This stuff”—he gestured to all the milks with names like soy, almond, and rice—“doesn’t even come from a cow, just ground up plants.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know how they can even call it milk.”

“Well, I’m sure it must be fine, or they wouldn’t sell it.”

That actually got a laugh. “ _Right_. ‘Cause that’s definitely how that works. Jesus, it’s a wonder you’ve made it this long, Capsicle.”

“We can’t all have servants and computers do everything for us, Stark! What are you even doing here, anyway? Don’t tell me you’re shopping, you don’t even have a basket.”

Tony grinned. “You’ve got me there, Cap. I was bored. Pepper’s in LA, trying to get more people into the idea of clean energy, and Jarvis won’t let me into my lab. Something about not having been out of the tower in three days, vitamin D deprivation, blah, blah, blah, sometimes I wish I hadn’t made him so damn _responsible_.”

“And you just thought you’d come annoy me?” Steve tried to keep the anger in his tone, but in truth he was kind of flattered. “What about Banner?”

“He went back to Calcutta, the day before yesterday. Apparently he left some things unfinished. He’s supposed to be back next week, but that doesn’t help me right now, does it? You’re the only person in the state of New York at the moment who I’m not certain hates my guts.”

Steve couldn’t decide how to respond to that. “Well, I’m doing my grocery shopping.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. I kind of figured that, seeing as how you’re in a grocery store and all, with a cart full of groceries.” Tony rolled his eyes again.

Steve flushed again. “I mean, so I’m not going to stop doing that just so I can entertain you.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t think I’ve ever been grocery shopping at a store before—Jarvis monitors my cupboards, and restocks them as needed. And then if I need something special, I just ask, and receive.” He shrugged. “It sounds like it could be fun. And maybe after you’re one buying all these boring food things we can go get you some real clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Steve decided to move on from the milk. S.H.I.E.L.D. paid him enough that he could buy more if he didn’t like the soy.

Tony made a face. “Plaid shirts and slacks, Steve? Seriously. When you’re not even doing anything.”

“I like plaid!” Steve protested.

Tony raised his eyebrows at him. “You’ve got a great figure, Cap, and I know you know it—there’s no reason to hide it like that. Oh, I’m going to like this—I bet you don’t know any good music, either. You know, we should totally hang out more, you need a positive modern influence in your life…”

Tony kept talking, and Steve just let him, deciding that, with Tony, it was probably easier to tune him out than it was to get him to shut up. The idea of Tony being “a positive modern influence” did make him smile, though, and he was a little surprised to realize that he was excited to spend more time with the shorter man. They were very different, and yet somehow (now that they’d gotten over their initial misconceptions) they seemed to click in a way that Steve only ever had with Bucky. 

Grocery shopping went far smoother than it ever had before—Tony may have never done it, but he was familiar with all of these modern foods. Also, it was surprisingly nice to have a distraction from himself. Steve realized he had really missed Tony’s inane chatter.

Apparently Tony was serious about not having anything better to do, because he walked home with Steve (it wasn’t terribly far, and exercise wasn’t something he avoided, and besides, he couldn’t put the groceries on his bike). Tony even offered to help carry a bag, but Steve turned him down. Super Soldiers don’t let men with heart conditions carry their groceries for them, no matter how kind the offer (and since when did _Tony Stark_ make that kind of kind offer? This had to be more than mere boredom).

Tony came in and sat on the counter of Steve’s tiny kitchen, watching him put away his food. For once, he was quiet, and that only served to reinforce the thought that something must be the matter.

“So,” Steve said as casually as he could manage, shutting the door of the refrigerator, “Are you gonna tell me why you’re really here, or I am I supposed to not notice that something’s up?”

Tony shot him a glare. “So, are we buying you some new clothes or what?” He jumped off the counter and wandered into the bedroom. “Figures you’d be a neat freak, American icon that you are.”

“I’m not a ‘neat freak’.” Steve followed the older man. “I just don’t have that much stuff.”

“And that”—Tony spun around, wagging a finger in Steve’s face—“is what we are going to fix.”

Shopping with Tony Stark is not like any clothes shopping Steve had ever done. For one thing, instead of going into stores like Sears or Macy’s, it involved going into fancy boutiques, a tailors, and some kind of antique-clothing store where some of the things on display were almost as old as Steve (“It’s not antique, Steve, it’s _vintage.”_ ). Also, Steve was fairly certain that they spent more than the average annual income of a family of four. Initially he objected to the extravagance, but Tony just pouted at him until he stopped looking at price tags. He supposed if Tony wanted to spend his money buying Steve tailored jeans, that was his business (though he wasn’t sure how many of these things were ever coming out of his closet after today—he definitely wasn’t going to be comfortable wearing bright red “skinny jeans”, but Tony insisted they buy them). They ended up out to dinner at a restaurant that made Steve feel low-class just looking in the window, but Tony took his arm and led him in like he owned the place, and then it wasn’t so bad. Tony was still wearing his T-shirt and cargo pants, but he’d made Steve change into black jeans and a bright blue button down with a charcoal blazer over the top. The get-up made Steve feel kind of ridiculous—it wasn’t like he was going on a _date_ , for goodness sake, just two friends going out to dinner. At a ridiculously fancy restaurant. After spending all afternoon together. And Tony never had explained what made him seek out Steve’s company.

“Tony,” Steve said as the waiter brought them a bottle of red wine (they had just sat down, so how he knew to bring it was beyond Steve). “What is this?”

The billionaire raised his eyebrows and picked up the wine bottle. “This, Captain, is the finest Merlot money can buy.”

Steve scoffed. “You know that’s not what I meant. And I have a name, you know.”

Tony sighed. “I know. Steve. Can’t I just want to spend time with you?”

“Yes, but—geez, Tony, you’re just not acting like yourself! Since when do you offer to help me _carry my groceries_? And we’ve spent all day together, and we haven’t fought once. You—it’s like you’ve lost your _spark_.”

“Do you have to be so _earnest_ all the time, Steve? I mean, I get it, Captain America, all-American apple pie white picket fence, but seriously?”

“Tony.”

Tony sighed again. “After dinner, all right?”

“Fine. But I’m holding you to that.”

The rest of dinner went as smoothly as could be expected, given that Tony spent it brooding and attempting to drink as much wine as possible. By the time they’d gotten the bill, the shorter man could barely sign his name, and he was unsteady as they walked out. There was no way Steve was going to let him drive in this state (much less go home alone), so they ended up getting a cab back to Steve’s apartment.

“Thanks, Steeeeve,” Tony slurred as they got into the cab. “I knew you’d take care of me…” With that, the billionaire proceeded to fall asleep on Steve’s shoulder.

He didn’t have the heart to wake him—Tony looked surprisingly vulnerable sleeping, and it made Steve’s heart ache in an unfamiliar way. It wasn’t too difficult to carry the shorter man into his apartment and lay him on the bed. They could talk when he woke up, and Steve could sleep on the sofa.

Steve woke up in time for his five am run the next morning, but decided to stay in once he remembered his houseguest. He figured the one thing that was more frightening than waking up in an unfamiliar place was waking up in an unfamiliar place _alone_ , and with the way Tony ad been acting yesterday, he figured the other man didn’t need an extra scare. Instead, Steve opened up one of the multitude of books he had stacked by his couch, waiting to be read. There was a lot of good (and not-so-good) literature he’d missed in his seventy years on ice, and at least he understood how books worked (S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to set him up with a laptop, but, well, Steve and technology didn’t exactly get along. Which is to say the thing was now shattered and hiding in a drawer). This particular book was about a female archer who had to fight a bunch of other young people in some kind of crazed ritual sacrifice. It was pretty interesting (and the girl reminded him a little of Barton, so, real world connection), and he didn’t realize how much time had gone by until he heard a groan from the bedroom and glanced at his watch. It was almost nine o’clock, and he hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet—he should’ve known Tony would throw off all his routines.

Steve set down the (mostly finished) book, putting a pot of coffee on in the kitchen before peeking into the bedroom. Tony lay sprawled across the bed, covers tangled around his legs. At some point he’d managed to rid himself of his pants, and one bare calf was exposed to the air. A ray of sunlight landed directly on the pillow, which Tony had pulled over his head to cover his face. _I’m going to draw this_ , Steve thought. _Who would believe even Tony can look like a human?_

As he stood in the doorway (and really, he shouldn’t feel any compunctions about going in, it was his own bedroom), the man on the bed shifted, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like a mathematical equation as he pulled the blankets tighter around himself.

Steve smiled despite himself, stepping into the room. “Tony?” he called gently.

Tony froze, but otherwise didn’t respond.

Steve stepped closer, calling louder, “Tony.”

A tentative hand came up and lifted the pillow from Tony’s eyes. He blinked sleepily at Steve for a second before recognition dawned. “Steve?” he mumbled incredulously.

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Oh my god.” Tony sat up abruptly, looking panicked. “Oh my god, you’re actually here, aren’t you? I can’t be dreaming, my head wouldn’t feel like this asleep. What are you doing here? Where am I? Did I…? I didn’t _do_ anything to you, did I?”

Steve laughed. “Not unless falling asleep on me counts as ‘doing something’. We went out to dinner last night, you got drunk on wine, you fell asleep on me, I brought you here, and as far as I know, you slept through the night. I slept on the couch, and your actions were perfectly virtuous. Although you never did tell me what you were so upset about yesterday…”

Tony blinked again. “Coffee first,” he said eventually.

“That I can do. I’ll, uh, leave you to get up, coffee’s in the kitchen.” Steve backed out of the room and went to see if he could do anything about making something for breakfast (would Tony prefer eggs, toast, or cereal? How was he supposed to know?).

Tony stumbled into the room five minutes later, looking marginally more awake. He accepted a mug of coffee, dumping sugar into it before guzzling it like lemonade on a hot day. “Thanks.”

Steve smiled. “Are you hungry? I was just at the store, so I have pretty much anything.”

“Except real milk.” Tony wrinkled his nose. “You’re gonna hate that soy crap.”

Steve snorted at Tony’s expression. “I’m sure it’s fine. I’m going to have some toast, but I’ll make you an egg or something, if you want.”

“Toast sounds great.” Tony refilled his mug from the coffee pot. “Thanks.”

Steve hummed in acknowledgement, turning to the toaster and putting down a couple slices of wheat bread. “So, you’ve had your coffee. You’re not getting out of this again, Tony, so don’t even try. I’m stronger than you, and I am not about forcibly holding you down and _making_ you tell me: what’s wrong?”

Tony sighed. “Jesus, Cap, calm down. It’s no big deal, I’ll get over it.”

“Get over _what?_ ” The toast popped, and Steve went to collect it, bringing it and the butter over to his little table. Tony held out his hand for a piece of toast, but Steve pulled it back out of reach. “Ah-ah-ah, no toast until you talk.”

“Ooh, blackmailing me with food. I’m crying foul!”

“Tony!”

Tony looked down at the table, and addressed his knife. “Pepper broke up with me.”

Steve put down the toast. “What?”

Tony snatched a piece of bread, taking a bite and talking while he chewed. “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me, I’m not saying it again.”

“But— _why?_ ”

Tony shrugged self-deprecatingly. “I’ve been told I’m rather self-obsessed. I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did, to be honest. Come on, you have to admit I’m not the easiest guy to get along with. I guess she’d just had enough.”

Steve pushed the other piece of toast toward his guest, heading back to the kitchen to put down more. “That’s terrible, Tony. I’m so sorry.”

Tony shrugged again as Steve came back into view. “It’s not your fault. Was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“I can’t believe she would just leave you like that! While Bruce was gone, too? She has to have known you’d be upset.”

Tony sighed. “It was my fault. I asked her—well, it doesn’t matter, I forced her hand.”

“She turned down your _proposal?_ ” Steve’s voice was shot with righteous indignation.

“Yes?”

“That’s terrible! Why didn’t you say anything? I’m sure I could’ve found a better distraction than grocery shopping.”

“That’s it, though—I didn’t _want_ a better distraction. If I wanted a better distraction, I have a lot of other places to look for it than you—no offense intended. But, Cap—I don’t know if you know this, hell, not knowing it is part of _it_ —you just kind of radiate…goodness. I could have gone and gotten drunk anywhere, including my own home—I could have had random, meaningless sex with any woman in New York City—I could have thrown myself into my work. But I came to see you, because—well, because I figured if I got drunk, you’d take me home and feed me toast. I figured if we had sex, it wouldn’t be meaningless. And I figured you’d keep me from killing myself with work.” He cocked his head to the side. “And I was right, wasn’t I?”

Steve blushed. “Um, well, I am giving you toast…”

Tony laughed. “Sometimes I forget you’re from the forties. Sex between dudes was a big deal back then, right?”

Steve nodded. “I mean, I suppose it happened, but it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone talked about. There was some talk of it, I suppose, in the barracks, but—no, it wasn’t the sort of thing you really—wait, what about you and Pepper? Aren’t you, well, uh…”

“Straight?” Tony suggested (in the back of his mind, Steve was vaguely aware that he was being purposefully distracted). “I think of myself as more of an equal-opportunity lover.”

“Oh. Um, sorry, I guess, I shouldn’t have—”

“Hey, no, it’s fine. Ask me whatever questions you like, I’m game. It’s not like it’s a secret—that’s the beauty of the modern age, Mon Capitaine.”

Steve just felt uncomfortable with this entire conversation, which was probably the point. “Um,” he said, and then went to fetch his toast from the kitchen.

When he got back to the table, it seemed like Tony had decided to just pretend that entire portion of their conversation had never happened. “This is pretty good toast, for a guy who doesn’t even know what kind of milk he likes.”

“Um, thanks, I think? I did have some concept of different kinds of bread, even…before.”

“Hmm.” Tony grinned. “I’m more impressed that you can work a toaster.”

Steve scoffed. “We had _toasters_ , geez, Tony, I’m not from the Stone Age.”

“What about sliced bread? You know, like ‘the best thing since’?”

“Um, I was really little when it was invented? And then there was the great ‘Bread-Slicing Ban’ of 1943. It didn’t last very long, but they banned pre-sliced bread in an effort to conserve during the War.” He smiled, shaking his head at the memory.

“Wait, you’re actually not kidding?” Tony guffawed. “That’s insane!”

“It was wartime.” Steve shrugged. “They took the yellow coloring out of butter, too.”

“Why _do_ they color butter yellow? I guess it would be strange now if it weren’t, but why start in the first place?”

“Maybe it looks tastier?” Steve shrugged. “Why do they pump everything full of high-fructose corn syrup now? Whatever it takes to get people to buy more.”

“Buy, buy, buy, that _is_ our motto.”

“Not that you do anything to discourage it. How much money did you spend on me yesterday?”

“Oh, come on, that’s hardly fair! You didn’t own any clothes, all I did was get you started on the path towards modernity.” Tony was giving a look that said “I like spending money on people, and I was upset” (it was interesting how much more Tony said with his face than with his words, given how much he talked).

Steve rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure how ‘modern’ I want to become.”

Tony widened his eyes. “You’re just saying that because you haven’t experienced the benefits of what the modern world can offer. Today, we’re going to introduce you to _movies_.”

“Tony, contrary to popular belief, I do have my own life,” Steve protested, albeit weakly.

“Oh, that so? And if I weren’t here, what exactly would you be doing?”

Something in that tone made Steve flush. “Well, I’d probably head to the gym for awhile, maybe take my sketchbook to the park and draw for a piece, and then read or work out more.”

“Sounds boring. How about, instead, you come over to my place, and we watch the Lord of the Rings movies? The Hobbit just came out, we could go see it after.” Tony looked at him hopefully.

“Lord of the Rings? I remember those books from when I was a kid, they were great.” He sighed. There really was no way for him to resist those puppy eyes (Golly, when had he become such a pushover?). “Fine, we can watch the movies.”

Tony grinned. “Excellent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These wwii details are real, by the way. I talked to my eighty-something year old grandmother, and then I was like "I have to put in this thing about a sliced bread ban. And yes, toasters have existed significantly longer than sliced bread.
> 
> (Also yes, I know Steve's too old for LOTR, but shh, artistic license)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, I talk about Sherlock in here—no really specific spoilers, but I do vaguely discuss the plot of 2x01, so be warned.

Steve had planned to go home after _the Hobbit_ (and wow, movie theaters sure had changed in the last seventy years—it was positively highway robbery just to get in, and anyone but Tony would have to be crazy to even consider buying popcorn), but Tony had given him this look that said “please don’t leave me, I really didn’t want to be alone right now,” and he’d gotten in the car and gone back to the Tower with him. 

“You’ve got to see some of Martin Freeman’s other stuff,” Tony said as they walked in. “He makes a fantastic hobbit, but what really gets the fangirls going is his role in _Sherlock_.”

“Sherlock? As in Sherlock Holmes?” Steve knew those books—he’d read them as a kid as well.

“The one and only. The BBC—British Television—put out a new TV series where Sherlock solves crimes in modern day London, his faithful Dr. John Hamish Watson at his side. Martin Freeman is John, and he’s great—the whole show is great, actually, I think you’ll love it.”

“…okay.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Cap! It’ll be fun. Sherlock’s almost as smart as me!”

Steve chuckled. “I’m sure.”

They settled down on the couch together and Jarvis called up the first “episode” (though Steve thought it was more movie-length). By midway through episode 2, Steve must have nodded off on Tony’s shoulder—when he opened his eyes again, morning sunlight was streaming through the window and he had no idea what had happened to Soo Lin Yao, much less how either of those men had been killed.

He sat up, stretching, and realized Tony was nowhere to be found. “Jarvis?” he tried, hoping that the mysterious ceiling-voice would respond to him as it did Tony.

“Yes, Captain?” The British voice asked.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Sir is currently in his workshop downstairs. Would you like me to tell him you’re awake?”

“Um.” Steve thought for a second. “No, I think I’ll just go down there and see him—what time is it?”

“8:17 in the morning.”

“Did he even go to sleep last night?”

“Sir frequently spends all night in his workshop, sir.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really? Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about that. Jarvis, can you tell me how to get to Tony’s workshop?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Tony was sitting at a workbench, fiddling intently with a blue hologram of something that looked fairly mechanical when Steve found him. Jarvis unlocked the door, and Tony didn’t even look up when Steve came up behind him.

“What are you working on?” Steve said softly, not wanting to startle the genius.

“New set of wheels for Dummy—he keeps falling over things.” Tony sighed. “I tried teaching him to _not roll over things,_ ” (this seemed to be addressed to a strange, one-armed robot in the corner, who beeped indignantly) “but, well, maybe it would be better if he had a little more stability.”

“Oh.” Steve wasn’t entirely sure he understood.

Tony chuckled, reaching for his cup of coffee. “So, how’s Captain Sleepyhead?”

Steve felt blood rush to his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I got up at five yesterday, so…”

Tony waved a hand. “It’s fine, you were tired—hey, I fell asleep on you the night before, so, that makes us even, right?”

“Sure.” Steve smiled, and then frowned. “Jarvis said you didn’t get any sleep last night.”

Tony shrugged and turned back to the hologram. “Probably I didn’t. I do that sometimes.”

“Tony.” Steve sighed heavily. “You need to sleep, you’re only human.”

“Oh, unlike you, right?” There was anger underneath that tone.

“What? No, Tony, I sleep!”

“Right. You’re just incredibly strong, can’t get drunk, and heal ridiculously fast.”

“Tony.” Steve put a hand on his shoulder. “Tony, look at me.”

“I’m working.”

“Tony.”

Tony spun around in his chair. “What!?”

“Tony, you can’t just—whatever you’re thinking, about not being good enough, or something—Tony, you’re one of the best men I know. You act brash, like you don’t care, but you do, I’ve _seen_ it, and—”

“Get out of my lab.” Tony was abruptly on his feet, pointing to the door. “Get out!”

For once, Steve listened, although he didn’t go far. He made his way back up to the living room where they’d been watching movies yesterday, wondering how exactly he’d messed things up this time.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, sir,” Jarvis said as he sat on the couch. “He’s thrown people out of his workshop for less.”

“I don’t even know what I _did_ , much less how to fix it.” Steve groaned, burying his head in his hands.

“If I may suggest, sir, Sir does not like to be praised so openly in areas he does not see himself as skilled.”

“That’s absurd—what am I supposed to do, then, tell him he’s awful?”

“That would be what he expects, sir.”

“Can you—can you stop calling me ‘sir’, please? It makes me feel—well, as old as I am. Um. My name is Steve.”

“Certainly, Steve.”

Steve smiled a little at that. “Um, so, any suggestions on how I get him _un_ -mad at me?”

Steve wasn’t really sure how a computer could sound like it was smiling, but Jarvis did as he next spoke. “I believe that is something even I have insufficient data to calculate.”

“Figures.” Steve sighed.

“Although I can advise patience. He often forgets why he was angry, and moves on.”

Steve nodded, hoping the AI could see it. “So, where might I find a kitchen in this place?”

Tony’s toaster _was_ more complicated than Steve’s own, but it still followed the basic principle of insert toast, press down, toast bread. There was even bread to be toasted lurking in a cupboard, and milk and orange juice in the refrigerator. Steve made himself some breakfast and ate it, still trying to figure out how best to apologize to Tony. He hadn’t come up with anything by the time he was done eating, so he put in some more toast and decided to use it as a peace offering.

Jarvis opened the door for him again as he re-entered the workshop, now bearing a plate of buttered toast and a glass of milk. He set them down silently at Tony’s elbow before retreating upstairs in the hopes of finding something to do.

45 minutes and two chapters later (Jarvis had explained how to read on one of the many tablets lying around, and so he was continuing the book he’d started yesterday), Tony came into the living room and flopped down beside him on the sofa. 

“So,” the brunet said, putting his feet up on the coffee table. “What are we watching today.”

“Well, that’s up to you, really, although we didn’t finish Sherlock last night.” Steve wasn’t really sure what was going on, but Tony didn’t seem angry anymore.

Tony rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you fell asleep during an episode of _Sherlock_.”

“I was tired!” Steve was blushing again. Tony seemed to have that effect a lot.

It wasn’t very far into the first episode of series two that Steve started to feel uncomfortable. “Is this—is this shown on normal TV? Anyone could watch this?”

Tony looked over at him and raised his eyebrows. “Is it the lesbians or the naked that’s bothering you?”

“Well, both, I suppose. And the—well, the _sex_.”

Tony laughed. “Jarvis, pause.” He looked over at Steve. “So, lesbians—fine, naked man—fine,”—“He’s wearing a sheet!”—“naked woman—okay,”—“You can’t see _that_ much of her!”—“ _sex_ , and Captain America is all blushes and stammer?”

“It wasn’t something we talked about!” Steve protested. “It wasn’t the kind of thing that was on _television_ , even if we’d had televisions! Yes, men were supposed to be with women, and vice-versa, but I knew some folks who weren’t like that, and they were perfectly decent. I know some folks who are like that now, and I couldn’t fault them for a single other thing. But I can’t understand how much everyone talks about _sex_! You, you’re all innuendo and double entendre and I really don’t care who you love, but can you love them _quietly_?”

Tony was really laughing now, full on sides shaking. “I think, for a lot of these people, sex isn’t so much about love as it is about impulse control.”

“I was raised that sex is supposed to _mean_ something.” Steve was aghast. “I can’t believe that _this_ is what society has developed into, a place where men are slaves to biological urges.”

Tony rolled his eyes, sighing. “It’s not everyone, Steve, just some of us. Mostly the ones who get on the news. But then you have couples like Pep and I, where we weren’t just about sex. If you think about it right, it makes committed relationships _more_ significant, because you know you could be having a fling instead, if you wanted.”

Steve sighed. He would probably never be as comfortable with this as Tony was, but he supposed the other man had a point. “I’m sorry about Pepper.”

“Jarvis, play the show already.”

That night, after watching the rest of the Sherlocks and listening to several CD’s, Steve looked at his watch and stood up. He should really head home—he’d been wearing these clothes for two days, and it was late.

“Don’t,” Tony said, grabbing his wrist. “I have rooms, you can stay.”

“Tony…” He trailed off as he looked at the shorter man’s face. “Only if you promise to get some sleep.”

Tony smirked. “Sure thing, _Mom_.”

“And I’m going home tomorrow, at least to get some clothes.”

“Reasonable. Although—”

“Tony, you _just_ bought me new clothes. Thank you, but I can only handle so much money being thrust at me.”

“Good night, Steve.”

“Good night, Tony.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is shorter than the last one, I had an idea, and then it wrote differently than anticipated and I got a miserable cold. School starts tomorrow, though, so I figured I'd better post something...next chapter will have Bruce (I think? He was supposed to be here, but then he wasn't)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a little longer—I promised myself that I wasn't finishing this chapter until I'd introduced Bruce, gorram it! Also, finally, relationship development! Yay!

It was 2am when Steve got up to pee, and he figured he might as well check and see if Tony had actually gone to bed. The room he had claimed was on the same floor as Tony’s bedroom, and it didn’t take much effort to walk down the hall and push open the door. The bed was empty.

Steve kind of wanted to bang his head against a wall. “Jarvis, where is Tony?”

“Sir is in his workshop, Steve.” Somehow, the disembodied voice was even creepier in the darkened room—it felt as though there was someone there, someone who he just couldn’t see.

“Did he even _try_ to go to bed?” Steve demanded.

“Sir lay down for approximately 30 minutes, before getting up and descending to his lab. I do not believe he slept.”

Steve sighed. “Should I go and talk to him?”

“If you wish. He is not currently working with anything particularly hazardous.”

“Thought I told you to get some sleep,” Steve said gently, entering the lab to find Tony staring blankly at one of his holograms.

“Couldn’t sleep. Not tired.” Tony’s reply would have been more convincing if there wasn’t a slight slur to his words. He didn’t seem particularly drunk, though, so it was probably just exhaustion.

“Want to talk about it?” Steve sat down on the end of the table.

Tony glared, but didn’t reply.

Steve shrugged, rubbing a hand up and down his arm nervously. He wished he were wearing more than a thin t-shirt and borrowed pajama pants—it made him feel exposed. But maybe exposed was what Tony needed right now. “Igetnightmares,” he blurted. Tony glanced up. “I mean, since I—unfroze—I have nightmares. About not having a way out, about crashing, about freezing. Sometimes I wish I’d never have to sleep again.”

“Were you awake?” Tony asked. “I mean, when you were freezing, were you awake for that?”

“Not really, I don’t think—the plane crashed pretty impressively, and I think I got knocked out. But that makes it worse, somehow—your brain shuts off, and the next time it turns back on, seventy years have gone by.” He shivered slightly. “I have nightmares about that, too—about falling asleep and waking up to find another century gone by.”

“And would that really be so bad? I mean, sure, the first time must’ve sucked, everyone you knew was gone, but—what so great about right now that you’d miss?”

Steve shrugged again. “Well, I’d miss your great movie commentaries, for one thing.”

Tony snorted, closing the hologram with a gesture. “Right.”

“And it’s disorienting, waking up to a whole new world. When I crashed that plane, plenty of people didn’t even have telephones. You had at most a line for a block, really, unless you were incredibly rich. I wake up, and everyone has a ‘phone’—or things you call phones, anyway, though the phones I knew didn’t do half the things these do—in their pocket. What would it be in seventy years? Comm units implanted in our brains? Will they even _have_ toasters in 2090, or will bread just appear pre-toasted the moment you think of it? Will Jarvis have taken over the world?”

“I have no current plans for world domination, Steve,” Jarvis interrupted dryly.

Tony laughed, and Steve joined in, albeit weakly. “I’m just—I know you don’t always like to talk about things, but—I’m here, if you need me to be.”

Tony met his eyes for a second before looking down at his hands and mumbling, “I’m afraid of the dark.”

Steve was taken aback. “Don’t you, you know, kind of have a built-in night-light?”

“Yes, but not if I pull the blankets up over it, and if I don’t I’m cold, and I tried leaving the lights on low but I couldn’t fall asleep then, either.” He let out a huff of frustration. “When Pepper was here, I would pretend all the noises were just her moving, and I knew that if something came to get me, she was there to—I don’t know, throw one of her stilettos at it.”

“So you’ve just been staying awake until you’re so exhausted you can’t keep your eyes open any longer?”

“Pretty much.” Tony shrugged. “It gives me more time to work down here, so that’s a plus.”

“Tony.”

“What do you want me to do, Cap? Hire someone to _sleep_ with me—literally, sleep?”

Steve shook his head. “No, that’s not what I…I wouldn’t suggest something like that, no. If you wanted, I could—no, that’s, never mind.”

“No, what? Don’t try to poker face me, Steven Rogers, you don’t _have_ a poker face.”

“Um.” Steve was pretty sure his face was redder than an organic tomato. “Well, I could, um, stay with you. If you wanted. So you could sleep.”

Tony (and Steve really should have predicted this reaction, he was sure if it hadn’t been _2am_ he would’ve) waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Well, now, Cap, didn’t know you were into me that way.”

“No!” His blush deepened. “No, that’s not what I—I just thought, you know, maybe—it was a terrible idea, I’m going back to bed, clearly I am still asleep.” He stood up to leave.

Tony’s hand snapped out and grabbed his arm. “Wait, Steve, I’m sorry, that was a dick move. It’s just—are you really that concerned with my sleeping patterns?”

Steve’s expression softened. “Yes.”

“Oh. Well, when you put it like that…”

“So.” Steve was finally losing patience. “Are you coming to bed, or what?”

Tony sighed. “Fine. I’ll sleep with you.”

Steve let out a laugh of relief. “Don’t sound so happy about it.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m _happy_ ,” Tony replied suggestively, wrapping an arm around Steve’s back as they left the room together.

Steve scooted away from the arm. “Okay, maybe I was happier with resigned.”

Tony just laughed.

They went back up to Tony’s room, and Steve crawled into the bed.

“Ooh, look at you, the confident seducer.”

“Shut _up_ , Tony!” Steve chucked a pillow at him. “If either of us is the ‘confident seducer’, it’s you. I don’t exactly have a lot of practice sharing people’s beds,” he admitted.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “I heard something about you and an Agent Carter, back in the day…”

Steve was grateful that the darkness was hiding some of his blush. “We only kissed _once,_ geez, did your father tell you that?”

Tony’s expression darkened for a second before he turned away, allegedly getting pajamas out of the dresser. “Rule number one, sweetheart: never mention a guys dad while you’re in his bed.”

“Sorry. Um. Do you want me to leave while you get changed?”

Tony looked over his shoulder so Steve could see his eye roll. “I’m good—if it offends your tender forties sensibilities, you can close your eyes or something.”

Tony pulled off his shirt, revealing all the compact muscles and scars on his back, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut. He was just helping a friend going through a tough time, that was all there was to this—it was like falling asleep on the couch with someone, only in a bed. All the flirting was just part of Tony, he flirted with everything, there was no way this was anything more than that. Now if only he could get those butterflies out of his stomach…

The bed dipped beside him, and he opened his eyes to see Tony pulling the covers up over both of them. “Goodnight, Tony,” he said.

“Goodnight.”

He thought he heard a muttered _Thanks, Steve_ awhile later, but he was already mostly asleep so he couldn’t be sure.

The next morning Steve woke up to a warm hand landing on his face. He startled a little, and then remembered what had happened last night. Somehow Tony had managed to wrap himself around Steve during the night—apparently he was a flailer, as well. _Hmm,_ Steve thought. _The things you don’t know about a person_. It was actually remarkably comfortable, having all this physical contact—Tony was warm and just the right kind of soft. On the other hand, Steve really ought to get up—he’d missed his run for two days in a row, and while he might not _need_ it to stay in shape, he liked the discipline.

Being careful not to wake the sleeping genius, Steve wriggled out of his embrace and went to go change. He really did need to go get some other clothes, especially if what happened last night was going to keep happening. He found a piece of paper and a pen, and left a note on the pillow _‘If I’m not here when you wake up, I went for a run. Don’t panic, I’ll be back soon. ~Steve’._ He felt ridiculously like a lover skipping out the morning after, but squashed that. Tony had been as much of a gentleman as possible, given the circumstances.

The problem with running, Steve found, was that it gave him entirely too much time to think. Normally he enjoyed that—running was a break from all the distractions of the modern world, thirty minutes in which he could forget about electronics and heroism and the deep-seated loneliness that was his life now and just focus on _feeling_. It was the one part of his day where he could forget that he was in the 21st century and just be Steve again. This morning, however, his mind wouldn’t shut off. He was thinking about Tony, about how easy it was to just let the billionaire slip into his life (now that he wasn’t being purposefully obstinate), and how _pleasant_ the last few days had been. It was like he’d woken up all over again—gone from being constantly alone and out of touch to being in the constant presence of a thoroughly modern man. He _liked_ it, he realized—he liked listening to Tony ramble, he liked that Tony was trying to integrate him into modern society, he liked _Tony._ And—and he’d liked waking up next to Tony. He knew Tony didn’t think of him that way, and it was awfully strange for Steve himself to be thinking along those lines, but—he thought maybe he wouldn’t mind waking up next to Tony in the future, under different circumstances.

Nervous energy made him run faster, and before he knew it he was in an unfamiliar part of town. He finally paused, looking at street names hopelessly (New York had changed a lot in the past seventy years), before deciding to hail a cab and kill two birds with one stone. By the time he made it back to the Tower, Tony was already in the kitchen making coffee, and he put his thoughts behind him in favor of making more toast.

◊•◊

“So, Bruce is coming home tomorrow,” Tony said one morning over breakfast, about a week later. “He called last night, said he’s on his way. Apparently things over there wrapped up quicker than expected.”

“Oh.” Steve felt a little like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. “So, I guess I should—do you want me to wait for him, or should I just…?”

Tony’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Should you what?”

Now Steve was confused. “I thought—you’ve been great, but once Banner is back, you won’t need me hanging around anymore.”

Tony’s eyebrows jumped into his hair. “What?”

“It’s fine,”—it wasn’t fine, not at all, and why did he feel like he was having an asthma attack? He wasn’t supposed to get those anymore—“I get it, I understand, I was just—a distraction, a way to pass the time, I’ll just…” He stood up, planning to go pack up his stuff.

Tony was beside him, grabbing his wrist. “Hey, wait a sec. What’s all this talk about leaving? This was supposed to be fun—weren’t you having fun? Because there are other movies, and I’ll let you listen to that stuff you like—Jarvis can play whatever you want, I’m sure he’d be happy to, he likes you, you know, I didn’t sleep half as much before you started staying here, much less eat _breakfast_ —Jesus Christ, Steve, I haven’t eaten _breakfast_ since I was _twelve— ”_

Steve put a hand over Tony’s mouth. “ _What_?”

Tony took a step back, dropping Steve’s wrist. “…I don’t eat breakfast?”

“No, not that—although I don’t know why you wouldn’t, it helps you start your day so much better—what were you rambling about fun? Of course this was fun, I haven’t had this much fun—well, probably ever—but I figured it was just, you know, a distraction. For you. From, you know, Pepper, because Banner was gone.” Steve was looking at the floor.

He was startled when Tony laughed. “Steve, when I want a distraction I build a new Iron Man. You’re not a _distraction_ —shit, I’m terrible at this, ‘doesn’t play well with others’ should be tattooed on my forehead—I kind of thought, you know, that this was the sort of thing _friends_ did.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’s probably—so, you don’t want me to go, then?” Steve was still trying to wrap his mind around it. 

“So, I don’t want you to go.” Tony was smiling.

“Oh. Good. So—what’s on tap for today?”

“I was thinking we might do Harry Potter…”

To say that Steve was anxious about Dr. Banner’s return was putting it mildly. He and Tony had managed to create a kind of fragile peace in the last week and a half, and he knew he wasn’t ready to give that up. Also—they didn’t talk about the sleeping arrangements, and Steve knew Dr. Banner would respect that, but…well, he didn’t want the good doctor getting the wrong idea about his relationship with Tony. He knew Dr. Banner knew about the situation with Pepper, and he didn’t want to seem—he didn’t want to seem like a rebound, or something, and—well, Tony didn’t exactly have the best reputation, and while Steve had accepted the fact that on some level he wanted the other man, he didn’t want to seem like the sort of fellow who would be in bed with Tony Stark. Not that he wasn’t, you know, in bed with Tony Stark, but, well—and Steve hadn’t ever even had _sex_ before, so, you know, that image would be, well, wrong. Um. 

It didn’t help that Tony seemed completely unbothered by the situation—after that initial hesitation, he’d never brought it up again, and at this point Steve just expected to be woken up enveloped in the other man’s embrace. They didn’t talk about it—when they finished whatever they were doing in the evening, Steve would go into Tony’s room and lie down, and the other man would join him a few minutes later. They didn’t talk about it, but if Dr. Banner came home, they might have to, and—and Steve didn’t want to know what they were doing, not in words, because that would make it real and then he’d have to stop.

They got through the first six Harry Potter films by two in the morning, and then Steve insisted they leave the final two for the next day. If this was going to be his last night with Tony, he wanted to make sure the other man actually got some sleep (they were meeting Dr. Banner at the airport at nine), and also he wanted to be awake enough to remember the films (although he thought he liked the first few better than the later ones).

The alarm went off at seven thirty, and for the first time since they’d initiated this arrangement, both men awoke together. Tony groaned, and Steve swatted the alarm (thank goodness that was something that still worked relatively the same—if you hit the noise making thing hard enough, it will shut up, no matter the century). Suddenly, the warm arms around him retracted, and Tony was sitting up staring at him in horror.

“Um, wow, sorry, I don’t know, must have rolled over while I was asleep, subconscious, you know, well, I guess that’s not helping my case any, but, well, instinctive reaction to warm object, um—”

Steve put a hand over the other man’s mouth to stop the flood of words. “Tony, it’s fine. And you do that every morning.”

“I—do?” Tony asked, pulling Steve’s hand away.

Steve nodded, and Tony collapsed dramatically back down. 

“Well, Jesus, isn’t _that_ wonderful…”

Steve tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s really fine. I like the warmth, too.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his face. “Christ, do you have to be so—oh, never mind, of course you do. You won’t tell anyone, right?”

Steve snorted. “Who would I tell? I’d have to explain how I came by the information, for one thing, and people might get the wrong idea.”

“Besides, who would believe Captain America was sleeping with a _man_ —how scandalous!” Tony said in mock-horror.

Steve swatted him. “Hey, Captain America can sleep with whoever he wants! It’s more that, you know, I mean, you’re _you_ , and I’m, well, me.”

“That’s a tautology,” Tony said with a frown.

Steve wasn’t entirely sure what that word meant, but he the intent was clear. “Well, you— _sleep_ with people. And I—don’t. Um.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “I see,” he said, and then got up.

They got dressed and prepped without another word, and the drive to the airport was uncomfortably silent. Steve wasn’t quite sure what he’d said wrong, but he was sure it was something. Tony Stark never went quiet like that, Tony Stark never shut up, even when it was early morning or they were in a meeting or whatever. Steve really wanted to say something—apologize, or talk about something else, anything—but he had no idea what to say.

Thankfully, Dr. Banner’s plane didn’t get in too late, and so the awkward wait at the airport was minimal. The doctor looked surprised to see them waiting for him. “Uh— hey, guys. Steve, good to see you.”

Steve smiled. “Good to see you too.”

“Have you been keeping Tony here out of trouble?” Banner spoke flippantly, but there was an underlying earnestness to his tone.

“I’ve been doing my best.” Steve’s smile felt plastered on. 

“Come on,” Tony said gruffly. “It’s too damn early to be up.”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up, and he glanced at Steve, a clear question in his eyes. Steve shrugged lightly as they followed the billionaire to his car. He didn’t know what was wrong, and he sure didn’t know how to fix it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for hanging around! I really appreciate the love. There should be one or two more chapters, depending on however obstinate Steve's being this week. (He really, really didn't want Dr. Banner to come home. Like REALLY.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to work out (I promise!!!), but not in this chapter. But YAY! Bruce is here! A living character that's not Steve or Tony! I am succeed!

Steve was surprised at how grateful he was for Bruce’s return—with Tony acting like he was (when they got home he went down to his lab and hadn’t been seen since), it was nice to have someone else to talk to, even if he was a little jet-lagged.

“So, how has he been?” Bruce asked over lunch. “I tried to get home as quick as I could.”

Steve shrugged. “He was actually doing relatively well until this morning. He stalked me to the grocery store the day after, and ended up getting drunk and falling asleep on me—that was the worst I saw, though. Since then he’s kind of thrown himself into educating me about modern pop culture.”

“Hmm.” Bruce nodded, like he approved. “I’m glad he thought to go see you.”

“Yeah. I hadn’t realized how bad he was at taking care of himself, until I got here. At least now he’s sleeping.”

Bruce looked impressed. “That’s good, I’m glad to hear it. I tried telling him collapsing wasn’t healthy, but he didn’t want to listen.” The doctor shook his head indulgently. “So, what happened this morning?”

“I don’t know.” Steve shrugged again. “He was fine, and then all the sudden he just went all cold.”

“Were you talking to him? I know he doesn’t seem like it, but he actually has really fragile self-esteem.”

“I—yes, we were talking.” Steve wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to say what about, though. Though Bruce seemed more likely to be understanding than Steve had feared.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “And might you have accidentally offended him? You know he really values your opinion, right? He spent most of his formative years idolizing you.”

Steve ruffled his hair and smoothed it back down again. “I guess I knew that on some level, but surely now that he’s met me, he can see that I’m not—all that. I mean, how can he expect me to live up to that image all the time? I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.”

“Steve.” Bruce sighed. “You are many things, but you are not ‘just a kid’ from anywhere. You have a kind of goodness inside you that made you what you are now. I’m kind of an expert on that serum you took, and I can tell you it only worked so well on you because of what it had to work with. And of course you’re not perfect—no one expects you to be. But you have to understand that, to Tony, your opinion matters more than someone else’s might. I’m not going to ask you what you said, because that’s your own business, but I want you to think about how it might have sounded to the emotionally stunted _child_ that is our gracious host.”

Steve frowned down at the remains of his sandwich. He supposed he _had_ kind of insulted Tony—he just hadn’t ever considered the fact that he might consider something like that an insult. “Okay.”

Bruce smiled. “He really, really likes you, you know.”

“He likes you, too,” Steve countered.

Bruce shook his head slightly. “Not exactly what I meant,” he muttered, getting up to put his plate in the sink and leaving Steve to stare after him in confusion.

After a few minutes, he decided he wasn’t going to finish his sandwich and went to go wash his plate. He stuck it back in the cupboard and paused, trying to decide how to go about apologizing to Tony in a way the other man would accept. Food had seemed to work earlier; hopefully it would again?

Arming himself with a sandwich and a handful of potato chips, Steve went down to the lab. Jarvis’s approval showed in the way the doors slid open without even making Steve pause. He walked in cautiously, unsure of his welcome, and moved to stand beside Tony, carefully sliding the plate onto the table by Tony’s elbow.

Just as he was about to slip away, thinking Tony was too engrossed in his work to notice him, the genius spoke (although he didn’t look up from the screen in front of him). “I don’t need you, you know. I was fine before you came here.”

Steve stopped in his tracks, brow furrowing. “There’s nothing wrong with accepting help, Tony.”

Tony let out a frustrated sigh. “Right. Of course not.”

“I’m serious, Tony—I know you’ve been having a rough time of it, but no one expects you to do this on your own. What kind of team leader would I be if I just let you work yourself to death?” He was trying for a little levity, but it fell kind of flat.

“‘Team leader’? Don’t make me laugh. You’re just a sick little boy that didn’t have the self-preservation instincts of a _lemming._ ” Tony’s tone was so cutting that it didn’t matter that Steve didn’t know what a lemming was. “All you talk about is ‘duty’ and ‘honor’ and you try to make us better soldiers.” Steve wanted to protest, but Tony wasn’t done. “You don’t give a fuck about me except for how I can be useful to you. Well, guess what, Rogers? I’m not a soldier, and neither are you, not any more. This is my house, and if I want to starve myself or live on just coffee for days, I damn well can, and you’ve got no right to say otherwise.”

“Tony…” Steve put a hand on his arm. Tony stared at it, but didn’t immediately shake it off. “I do care about you. Tony, I care about _you_. Wasn’t it just yesterday that you said we were friends? I want for us to be friends.”

“Yeah, sure. I don’t know who I was kidding, anyway.” Tony sounded so _defeated_ , suddenly, and Steve had the horrible feeling he hadn’t understood this conversation at all.

“Tony?” Steve’s hand was still on the inventor’s arm.

Tony shifted subtly away, focusing back on his screen. “I’m working. I’ll try to be up for dinner—go bother Bruce, or something.”

Steve stood staring at him, hand still outstretched, but after a minute of trying to think what to say he sighed and left.

Tony didn’t come up for dinner that night.

Steve slept alone in Tony’s bed, and he woke up cold.

He hadn’t realized how much he relied on waking up in the warmth of Tony’s embrace until suddenly that small pleasure was ripped from him, but now—those feelings he’d been trying to repress, the feelings he felt toward Tony that he’d refused to let himself look at properly, the feelings that had been like a constant whisper in the back of his mind, _those_ feelings—suddenly were an unavoidably loud cacophony in the front of his mind. He had to fix this thing with Tony, and he needed to come clean about how he felt.

The only problem was, he wasn’t sure how to go about it. Tony had locked himself in his lab the night before, and was unlikely to allow Steve in again, especially not if he thought Steve was just trying to be nice to him for the good of the team. Steve wasn’t sure exactly _why_ Tony thought that was wrong, but it seemed like that was what Tony had been focusing on. And Steve still had no idea what he’d said wrong yesterday morning.

Perhaps Bruce would have some better idea—he hadn’t spent very much time with the scientist, but he seemed very friendly and he definitely cared about Tony. When Steve came back from his morning run, the doctor was sitting in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee as he did a crossword.

“Oh, hey, Bruce,” Steve said, suddenly nervous.

Bruce looked up and smiled. “Good morning.”

Steve stepped the rest of the way into the room and sat down across from him.

Bruce set down his puzzle. “Did you need something? Not that I mind the company, but…”

“I wanted to talk to you about—Tony.” This was okay, this was safe, it was only Bruce.

“What in particular has you worried? Is he still mad at you?”

Steve nodded miserably. “I tried talking to him again yesterday, and he just yelled at me and locked himself in the lab.”

“He does that sometimes—it’s a coping mechanism, he doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“No, you don’t understand. He—well, we—I don’t know how to say this without you getting the wrong idea, but we’ve been sleeping together. Not like that!” he protested as Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “Just, sleeping. He was having trouble, without Pepper, and he would sleep better if I stayed with him.”

Bruce nodded. “And?”

“Well—it’s complicated, and I still don’t know what exactly I did wrong, but he suddenly seems to have decided that I don’t like him, and”—he dropped his voice, covering his face with his hands—“IthinkI’minlovewithhim.”

“Uh, Steve, are you sure I’m the one who you should be talking to about this?” Bruce asked kindly.

Steve looked up. “Who else is there? I’d talk to Tony, but, well. And Jarvis is only so useful for things like this. I just don’t know how to make him see that I actually do care for him, without—well, you know how he is about ‘feelings’.”

Bruce nodded emphatically. “That I do.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

Bruce fiddled nervously with the edge of the paper. “I really don’t know. He’ll come out of there eventually—maybe you should just give him space.”

Steve sighed, and stood up. “Maybe. Thanks, Bruce.”

“Sure.” The doctor went back to his crossword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took awhile--my inner Steve wasn't being very forthcoming. Next chapter should be the last, and then I might do a slashier epilogue. Thanks for all the love so far!


	6. Chapter 6

It could be argued that Steve was patient—he certainly had plenty of experience waiting for things. But while he was decent at waiting, Steve Rogers was very, very bad at waiting while doing _nothing._ When he’d wanted to join the military, he’d been turned down numerous times—but he’d been able to keep _trying_ to enlist. Perseverance, Steve had; patience, not so much.

He knew this was a fragile situation, though, and for once it seemed there really was nothing he _could_ do, so—well, some people might call it sulking, but really, it was just using up energy—he punched a dozen punching bags into submission. It didn’t help take his mind off things, really, at all, but hey, at least it was doing _something._

Eventually Bruce came in and asked if he wanted to have lunch.

Steve sighed, staring at the doctor with one eyebrow raised. “Lunch?”

Bruce gave him a weak smile. “It’s a meal. Most people eat it near the middle of their day.”

Steve rolled his eyes, unwrapping his hands. “Sure. Thanks.”

Bruce looked at the desecrated remains of the punching bags. “He’ll come around eventually, you know.”

Steve snorted. “Right. I haven’t even told him yet, he just broke up with his girlfriend, and he’s always idolized me. That sounds like a perfect situation.” He let out a huff of frustration. “Even if I do convince him that I’m telling the truth, and even if he reciprocates—which is a big ‘if’—we’re never going to work. I’ll just be a rebound, or a quick _fuck_ , because people like Tony Stark don’t date people like me.”

Bruce shook his head. “You have been in here alone for way too long. I’m taking you out to lunch, and then we are going to find a way to get you two to talk, even if it requires calling Pepper to get the manual override codes to get into the lab, because this is ridiculous. Christ, who would’ve thought that _I_ would ever be giving _Captain America_ a pep talk?”

“I’m just Steve right now, I think.”

Bruce smiled at him kindly. “I know you are. It’s easy to forget how young you are—you’re what, 25?”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded and sighed as they walked out of the room. “And I’ve never—you know. I’ve never even been on a real date before.”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, this is going to be an experience, then.” He patted Steve tentatively on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat and see if we can work out a game plan.”

 

It turned out that calling Pepper wasn’t necessary (a fact for which Steve was grateful), because when they got back to the Tower, Tony was snoring on the couch in the rec room.

“Go get him, tiger,” Bruce said, gesturing Steve into the room.

Steve looked back at him in terror. “I probably shouldn’t wake him—he hasn’t slept in a while, and—”

“And if you leave him like that, he’ll have a hell of a back ache tomorrow. He’d be much happier in a bed, Steve. And between the two of us, I can say he’d be a lot happier with you carrying him there than me.”

Steve took a hesitant step into the room, and then turned around and walked out, getting a few steps down the hall before Bruce caught his arm. “I can’t do this—he hates me, who am I kidding—”

“Shifts in Sir’s respiratory rate indicate that he is in the process of waking, Steve,” Jarvis informed them.

Steve froze, looking at Dr. Banner like a deer in the headlights. “I can’t do this.”

“You should be there when he wakes up.” Bruce gave him a little shove towards the door.

Steve took a deep breath. He’d taken on Hydra single-handedly once—he could face one sleepy genius.

Tony opened his eyes as Steve walked into the room, blinking at him sleepily before sitting up abruptly. “Steve! Oh God, I thought you’d gone—you are here, right? I’m not hallucinating? Tell me  you didn’t leave, I’m sorry, I’m a dick, don’t go—”

Steve crossed the room in two strides and put his hands on Tony’s shoulders. “Shh, Tony, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.” This was not how he’d expected this conversation to go.

“Oh, thank God.” Tony slumped back onto the couch, and Steve sat down beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders and drawing him into his side. After a second Tony straightened up a little. “Wait, fuck, that wasn’t what it sounded like.”

Steve couldn’t help a small smile. “And what was it, then?”

“I came up and you and Bruce were both gone and I—never mind, I was wrong, you’re here—clearly—so.” He slapped his hands on his knees. “We should probably finish those Harry Potter movies, shouldn’t we? Unless you watched them with Bruce? I’ll have you know that his comments are not nearly as informed as mine, he didn’t even _read_ the last three books—mmph!”

Steve had leaned over and pressed a kiss to the genius’ lips (what? He was rambling needlessly). It was just a chaste press of lips, but when he pulled away Tony was staring at him in awe.

The genius was silent for all of ten seconds before his mouth started running again. “Wow. Does this mean that you didn’t watch Harry Potter with Bruce? Or was that just a ‘shut up, Tony’, or were you more apologizing for making some very misleading statements in regards to your sexuality in the last couple of days? Or were the customs of kissing different in the forties—does pressing your lips to a man’s mean ‘I hereby challenge you to a duel to the death’ or something? Because if it does, I’m totally going to wear the armor, because otherwise that is in no way fair—you’re laughing, why are you laughing, I’m being serious, here!”

Steve was laughing too hard to make words. And he’d thought _he_ was panicked. He pulled Tony into his arms. “Tony,” he finally managed. “You’re being an idiot.”

“ _I’m_ being an idiot? Jarvis, please tell Mr. Rogers here exactly how not an idiot I am! I just don’t know these strange customs of yours!”

Jarvis was amused when he replied. “I believe, Sir, that Captain Rogers is correct in his assessment of your behavior.”

“Traitor,” Tony muttered, but he relaxed into Steve’s embrace a bit more.

“I’m sorry, too,” Steve said eventually. “I hadn’t realized that you—I hadn’t even realized that _I_ felt that way, much less that you did, and I sorry I’m such an idiot. You do know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, right? Because you totally are. Tony, I love you, I wouldn’t leave over something as stupid as an argument.”

“Wait.” Tony pulled back. “Pause, rewind: you _love_ me? I’m asleep, right? I’m in a coma or something—someone drugged my coffee! Oh, when I wake up, that guy is going to suffer…nobody messes with my coffee!” Steve was laughing again, and Tony looked at him indignantly. “This is not funny! Tampering with a man’s caffeine is a serious offense! God, even _dream_ Steve laughs at me!”

Steve sobered abruptly at the trace of real hurt in Tony’s voice. “Shh, Tony, no, I’m not laughing _at_ you, I’m laughing because we are both idiots.”

“I’m not sure how insulting my intelligence is supposed to be helping your case, here.”

Steve shook his head. “Tony. You’re not dreaming. I am here, and I love you. I love all of you—I love it when you ramble, I love it that you get obsessed with your work in your lab, I love it that you buy people things, I love how kind you are when you think no one is looking. I love waking up next to you—I love waking up with you wrapped around me. I hated waking up alone this morning, I hate fighting with you, I hate that you don’t believe me, even when I’m sitting here talking to you. I love that you forget to feed yourself, I love that underneath all your bluster and bravado you’re really sweet and shy, and I love that you let me see that sometimes. I _love_ you, Tony Stark, and I would be happy to spend as long as it takes trying to prove that to you.”

“Oh.” Tony looked dazed. “Well, when you put it like that…”

“Tony.”

“What?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Comments would be appreciated, criticism encouraged. I can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong :)
> 
> I'll probably post an epilogue later, but it isn't written, so don't hold your breath.
> 
> (Also I'll probably eventually go back and edit things--this wasn't beta'd [I'd love a beta, but I don't have one--anyone offering? *hopeful look*], so, seriously, point out errors)


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